I WOULD agree to this, but Lysa never crapped on him and well... look how that worked out.

Littlefingers ambitions and end game are still very murky water. Varys' not nearly as much, though there's still quite a bit that confuses me about his work: SPOILER: ( If Varys is trying to keep Westeros destabilized for Dany or Aegon--depending on whichever "dragon" you think he's backing--as evidenced by killing Kevan Lannister, why is one of his veryyyyyyy few genuine moments when he's trying to convince Ned to take the black and keep Westeros in tact? Only think that currently makes sense without accounting for inconsistency is that he just learned that from that moment and now is trying to place the RIGHT person on it )

SPOILER: ( Didn't he suggest killing Ned? "If one hand can die, why not another" or something similar? I know that putting a dragon on the throne is what Varys says he wants, but I'm not convinced that's true.

As far as trying to save Ned, he may have genuinely liked him, and was trying to incite the rebellion without killing Ned. Telling him about keeping Westeros intact may have been his attempt to convince Ned to save himself, the only way to do that would be to give him a reason to believe that living was more honorable than dying.

Also, there's a completely bonkers theory regarding that exchange that also has to do with several characters noticing that Ned's bones don't seem to be the right size, and Sansa noting that the head on the spike didn't really look like her father.